


with time, we fall apart

by chariiots



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Pining, Underage Drinking, Unreciprocated feelings, but like it's one or two lines, jun's mentioned only too, kind of, lapslock, meanie and jicheol are only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-10 02:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11118489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chariiots/pseuds/chariiots
Summary: with time, we grow up, and we slowly drift apart.or; in which eight year old jihoon thinks the boy with a pretty smile in his class shouldn't be crying.[non-idol school based au]





	1. we fall apart

jihoon is eight when they first meet. primary school is no fun at all, and he’d rather be at home playing the piano, or watching his mother design. he likes the sound of pencil scratching against the paper, patterns and sketches blooming like spring flowers all across the paper. his mother is not exactly neat, but that’s the charm in it. she scribbles out things aggressively, yet she manages to make it look graceful, even in the way she crumples paper and tosses it to the side. respect is a hard concept to grasp at a young age, but he knows he loves and respects his mom, and he understands that she knows the best.

his mom has always said that people are the prettiest when they smile, and he agrees. there’s a boy in class with an exceptionally pretty smile, compared to all the rest. jihoon’s not sure of his name, but when he smiles, he looks like a ray of sunshine.  

the ray of sunshine, though, is tearing up in the back of class during lunch break, and jihoon doesn’t like it one bit. he deserves to always be smiling, always pretty and glowing. “hey, don’t cry, you look pretty when you smile!”

“really?” he stammers, eyes glassy with tears. “but, one of the boys said my eyes are ugly.”

“ _i_ think your eyes are pretty. i think you’re the prettiest in the class!” jihoon says. he doesn’t understand the full implication of his words. he only thinks that soonyoung is pretty and has a pretty smile, and he doesn't want to see him sad again.

soonyoung smiles brightly. tear tracks stain his red cheeks slightly, but jihoon thinks that he’s still the prettiest.

 

soonyoung doesn’t leave his side after that day, not for the next two years, and he pinkie-promises to never. the concept of forever is abstract and jihoon’s forever lasts until he dies, but there’s nothing to complain about if soonyoung chooses to stay forever.

somewhere along the way, soonyoung gets into music and introduces everything to jihoon. naturally, jihoon follows. it’s always like this, jihoon unconditionally follows him, and soonyoung would follow him wherever he goes. he knows he’d follow soonyoung to the end of the world if he has to.

he’s starting to associate the word everything with soonyoung. soonyoung is capable of literally everything, sports, academics, dance, music. he likes almost everyone and everything. hell, he even likes school, since he likes learning and socializing.

soonyoung is everything to jihoon, his best friend, his confidant, his brother. he reminds him of summer days spent at beaches with him, the old swing set in the park they always play on, the gentle love ballad that is his favorite song, the feeling of warmth on a cold day. he means everything to jihoon.

 

thirteen year old jihoon is only a centimeter or two shorter than soonyoung, and still doesn’t really like school. to him, school is too limiting in a way. he’d rather have music every day instead of damn math, but he can't really complain. school’s an excuse to see soonyoung, whispering and snickering in the back of the class during lessons and spending lunch talking about everything under the sun as soonyoung steals his food.

soonyoung’s slowly expanding his social circles, and he joined the dance club in the first month of middle school. he pushed jihoon to join too, but he decided against it in the end. it’s time away from soonyoung, but it doesn’t matter. they can’t always be with each other 24/7.

instead, he waits in the library for dance club to end, for soonyoung to come look for him and then go home together. he likes hearing soonyoung talk about everything they’ve learnt that day, about the hyungs and noonas who take care of him, about the little things that happen during practice. he doesn’t always understand what soonyoung’s talking about, but it’s nice to just hear him talk and be excited over something.

in the meantime, he meets wonwoo at the library, and it’s nice to be friends with him. it’s an unspoken agreement that they share a table in a companionable silence, and share their notes when needed. they both don’t exactly like to socialize and it’s hilarious, considering a girl tried to ask wonwoo out, and all wonwoo did was blankly stare at her for a second before she stuttered and walked away.

soonyoung also meets another boy from dance club, junhui, and they both join them at lunch. the table has never been noisier with junhui and soonyoung constantly bantering, and wonwoo complaining about how shitty his day has been. it still feels the same though, since soonyoung is still here after all this while, balancing his negativity with his own positivity and expertly pulling jihoon into conversations whenever he’s spacing out.

soonyoung completes him, and pushes him to become a better person. they balance each other out perfectly, complementing each other’s strengths and making up for their flaws. soonyoung forces jihoon to take better care of himself on bad days, reminds him that his grades aren’t everything, and pushes him out of his comfort zone. honestly, jihoon doesn’t know what he’d be like now if not for soonyoung, and he doesn’t want to know what it’d be like without him.

 

fifteen year old jihoon has been waiting at the library two hours longer than usual. it’s closing in fifteen minutes. soonyoung isn’t coming, and jihoon can’t help but feel that sinking feeling of disappointment.

that night, soonyoung calls him and talks nonstop about how this girl from dance club, yuna, asked him out. they went out after school for ice-cream apparently, and he sounds so genuinely excited about it. jihoon can’t bring himself to tell him about how he felt like he was stood up. it’s not as if soonyoung can’t have a life outside of being friends with him, it’s not like he owes jihoon an apology. he doesn’t even owe jihoon an explanation, yet he got one, and that’s better than nothing. it’s not like they’re dating. 

it’s not like he cares or anything.

wonwoo lets him come over the next day, and jihoon cries on his shoulder for most of it. he had a small feeling that he was starting to crush on soonyoung, but he never really entertained the thought, always brushing it off as admiration of sorts. he’s wrong, it’s a crush for sure, and it hurts to know that soonyoung may be going out with this other girl that he’s never even brought up once.

“maybe… you’re in love?” wonwoo says, and jihoon laughs bitterly. he has a crush on kwon soonyoung, and maybe he’s in love, but that doesn’t change the fact that he likes yuna back. she’s probably an amazing girl, and a better fit for soonyoung than he’ll ever be. “it’s okay, i don’t know what to do about mingyu either."

jihoon opens the can of beer wonwoo snuck from his brother’s room, even though he said he wouldn’t drink less than an hour ago. “here’s to shitty crushes,” he says, taking a gulp of it before passing it to wonwoo.

“here’s to unrequited love.”

jihoon stays over that night, and wonwoo lets him share the bed with him. wonwoo’s sheets are warmer, but not as soft as the ones in soonyoung’s room, and his mattress is firmer. all he can think about is soonyoung and it sucks, because he knows soonyoung definitely isn’t thinking of him in the silence of the night.

 

when they're sixteen, they're no longer in the same class anymore. of course, they continue to block out breaks to spend together with their small circle of friends. it's always them, wonwoo, and junhui, and it's nice to have such an arrangement in place. it’s been a constant ever since the start of middle school, and now serves as a small comfort in such an unfamiliar environment. the pressure to get into a good university rises steeply, and attending _hagwon_ drains the soul out of them, but at least they have each other. if not for their constant moral support, jihoon may have given up.  

after school, junhui and soonyoung are always off at dance practice or with their teammates, but they still try to make time for wonwoo and jihoon. to make up for it, jihoon tries to capture every second as a memory. he tries to memorise how junhui has one tuft of hair that will stick out no matter what he does, how the corner of wonwoo’s lips quirk upwards before he tells a dad joke. but, when it comes to soonyoung, there’s nothing to learn about him anymore. they’ve been best friends for eight years, and he’s got every single one of soonyoung’s quirks and preferences memorized.

sixteen year old soonyoung doesn’t really like dark green anymore. he prefers black and white, prefers apples to bananas, loves dance and convenience store food and making people happy. he’s so full of love and passion, it’s only logical that he loves yuna with his whole heart.

jihoon, though, does not know exactly what he loves anymore. everything’s a chaotic blur of trying to keep his friends happy, and constantly working to top the class for his scholarship, that sometimes it feels like he could forget to breathe. all he knows for certain is that he genuinely loves composing, even if it probably won’t take him anywhere, and that he loves soonyoung. he does know himself though, and he knows that even though he’s hot headed and impatient, he’d wait for soonyoung until the end of time.

he does that already, actually. they've stopped walking home together. it's always jihoon waiting at the library for soonyoung to come, and if he doesn't, he goes home alone. wonwoo claims that he doesn't know why jihoon would so willingly put himself such pain, but he does. he’d do the same for mingyu, but the difference lies in how mingyu actually reciprocates the feelings unlike soonyoung. 

so, jihoon continues to wait. he waits for either himself to fall out of love, or for soonyoung to finally like him back. he waits like he always has for the past year.

 

by the time they’re in university, all going their separate ways to pursue their own dreams, there is almost nothing to hold on to except for scraps of memories relived too many times until jihoon doesn’t know how real they are. he’s almost definite the hand-holding in one of them didn’t actually happen but rather is just his mind trying to fill in some gap in his memory.

it’s finally after the change in environment that he finally was willing to let go of his crush on soonyoung. ( _love, not crush,_ he reminds himself. _you were in love. he was your first love._ ) either way, it’s too late.  

when soonyoung realizes he likes jihoon, having stopped trying to grasp on to feelings for yuna that were never there, he listens to his heart for once. he listens to the wandering thoughts that were constantly wondering how jihoon is doing, to the feelings that resented his girlfriend for being so controlling and demanding half of the time, to the buried love for jihoon that grew and never changed. he listens to wonwoo who laughs bitterly at his bad timing, _you fool, how could you not have realized jihoon was in love with you earlier? how could you keep rubbing yuna in his face like that?_

maybe it's been like this all the while. maybe he's never noticed, but twelve year old him would say current him like-likes jihoon. it doesn’t matter now, though. it's too late for soonyoung, who’s watches as jihoon’s boyfriend walks into his life and makes him feel loved. there’s nothing he can do about it. jihoon deserves all the love in the world, and soonyoung knows he can’t exactly offer that to jihoon. seungcheol’s a sweet guy who knows how to treat him right, who won't drift away from him because of some girl, who won't forgo 8 years of friendship just like that.

jihoon is a very patient person, always waiting for soonyoung. but sometimes, he's far too slow, far too late, and he knows one day jihoon would walk away first. it must be tiring to have to wait for so long, and he can’t blame jihoon for walking away and moving on. he's not sure when that started happening, but jihoon’s now too far, too far to reach again, and soonyoung is too far, too far into his too late love.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there will be an alternative ending to this, i promise!! just look out for it, it'll be coming in the near future heh i'm sorry if it feels a bit messy/kinda sucks but i really wanted to stop putting it off after like three weeks.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this messy emotional ficlet! [prompt me, i'm taking requests!](https://woozwhy.tumblr.com/ask/)
> 
> (update: the alternative ending is in the next chapter HEHE)


	2. put us back together again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “jihoon-ah, stop waiting. just take the chance while you have it.”
> 
> in which jihoon's too shy, too patient, and soonyoung's too dense, but they make it work like always. like they have since they were kids.
> 
> [alternative (official) ending]

junhui slings an arm lazily over jihoon’s shoulder, grinning cheekily. he’s definitely up to no good, and jihoon can tell.

“so, it’s the last day of school.” _oh, oh no._ he can tell where junhui is going with this. “that means it’s your last shot for you to confess, y’know? anyone here you like? maybe a specific-”

“yeah, there is,” jihoon mutters softly. his eyes trail towards soonyoung, who’s being chased by wonwoo for whatever it is that he did or said. he’s in love with this idiot that never learns from his mistakes, all recklessness and childish pranks, but he’s also an idiot who refuses to let go of his feelings. he’s tried, second year of high school with a senior of his, but that was a shitshow that ended in both him and seungcheol sobbing about their respective crushes and admitting to each other that they were using each other as a rebound of sorts. so yeah, a shitshow.

“tell him, then!”

“how do you know it’s a him?” he says, affronted.

junhui gestures in soonyoung’s direction, and smiles fondly at jihoon. “you’re not subtle, hoon, but he’s oblivious. you really don’t need to tell anyone for them to realize. he’s single, and you know that. he broke up with yuna last year, though he didn’t say anything about it.”

“he… he did?”

“yeah, he did. realized he didn’t love her and all that bullshit, and they broke up peacefully. why else do you think he started spending more time with us again? it’s because we're the only ones who’ll monopolize his time now.”

he didn’t know. he didn’t realize that they’d broken up, only noticing that soonyoung was spending more and more time around them, everything reverting back to what it was like in middle school. denial is his best friend, and deep down, he knew. but, he didn’t want to raise his hopes. then again, the more he thinks about it, soonyoung is definitely the type to not talk about his break ups. _it’s none of their business_ , he can hear soonyoung say, _so why should i tell the world about something private to me?_

“jihoon-ah, stop waiting. just take the chance while you have it.”

the problem is, he’s still too scared to make the first move, always has been the past three years. he’s been searching for excuses all this while to not, as if waiting for the stars to align perfectly would make a difference whether soonyoung would accept his confession. wanting to “wait for a sign” is a shitty reason to keep putting off asking soonyoung out, and so is “being scared of ruining their friendship”, but it’s good enough for jihoon.

he’s watching as soonyoung walks back to them with wonwoo, wonwoo pulling on his earlobe and lecturing him about dog-earing other people’s books. it’s an odd dynamic that their whole group has, but it’s nice. jihoon doesn’t like change, and he doesn’t mind if things stay this way. he really doesn’t mind hopelessly pining for soonyoung and hoping that he’d make the first move if it means that things won’t change from how they are now.

he can hear soonyoung’s laughter ringing in his ears, and he knows that so long as soonyoung’s still by his side, he’s content with that. 

 

university is a pain in the ass, especially being so far away from his hometown. sure, he and soonyoung are both studying in seoul national university, but their conflicting schedules and the amount of work he has from being a double major in law and psychology prevent them from meeting as often as jihoon would like.

it’s almost impossible to meet soonyoung nowadays with their busy schedules. but, they have weekly study sessions, and jihoon just has to settle with it. it’s nice to listen to soonyoung talk as he does his own work, or to just enjoy each other’s company in silence. it’s not much, but it’s better than nothing, and jihoon is just glad they’re not drifting. yet.

“i like you a lot,” soonyoung says breathily one night, breaking the silence, as if it was some sudden realization that's just occurred to him. it’s the middle of the night, and it takes a while for jihoon and his exhaustion to catch up and fully process what he’s said. “fuck, ji, i think i love you.”

it feels unreal. it feels like a dream, and jihoon actually pinches himself. is this hysteria, or some sort of hallucination from studying too much? “is that- are you… you’re not joking, right?”

“no, but- no, just forget it. pretend like i didn’t say anything, please,” soonyoung begs. 

this is- isn’t this exactly what he’s been waiting for? why is he holding back now? he’s watching as soonyoung quickly packs away his books, but he can’t seem to get anything out, the sudden confession leaves him too shocked to react at all.

“what if i don’t want to? what if i like you back?” he chokes out as soonyoung gets up to leave.

“fuck, how long?”  
  
“start of high school.”

soonyoung’s silent, scanning his face for any traces of dishonesty. then, he laughs, laughs so hard that he’s doubling over because of it, and all jihoon can do is really just silently seethe in his confusion, because this bastard kwon soonyoung is laughing at his feelings.

soonyoung finally calms down, and jihoon raises an eyebrow at him. “dude, holy shit, same. i didn’t know how to reject or break up with yuna, and thought that i could get over you if i just dated her. if you told me earlier- if you told me earlier! do you know how much i spent on dates with her? she was a good friend, but god- i really didn’t know how to love her.”

he spends the next few hours at jihoon’s dorm room, stealing kisses every few minutes and claiming to be making up for what was lost in the past three years. not that jihoon minds at all, though.

it’s almost three in the morning when soonyoung suggests that he go back to his dorm to sleep, a yawning mess who didn’t even get much work done in the end. “what’s the point?” jihoon says. “just stay the night.”

he does.

 

(they start to make more time for each other, meeting up whenever they can. they're sickly in love, and wonwoo and junhui don't know if they preferred whining, pining them or grossly cheesy them. but, they make it work like always. like they have since they were kids.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is like the situation where the whole university segment of the first chapter didn't happen, if you were confused!
> 
> there was actually another version of this that was a lot shorter, but i decided to rewrite it to something more satisfying to end with. sorry that this took so long!
> 
> i'm taking writing prompts now! [prompt away!](https://woozwhy.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> once again, thank you for taking the time to read this shitshow of feelings!!

**Author's Note:**

> there will be an alternative ending to this, i promise!! just look out for it, it'll be coming in the near future heh i'm sorry if it feels a bit messy/kinda sucks but i really wanted to stop putting it off after like three weeks.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this messy emotional ficlet! 
> 
> [prompt me!](https://cheriiots.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> social media: [tumblr](https://cheriiots.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/chariiots) | [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/woozwhy)
> 
> (update: the alternative ending is in the next chapter HEHE)


End file.
